Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

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kartruck
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Joined:Sun May 01, 2011 2:48 pm
Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by kartruck » Sun May 01, 2011 2:53 pm

Hello,
I have been having problems with using Ooma and my alarm system (Brinks/Broadview/ADT) until today. I found a post from Ralph on Amazon that fixed it within a minute. Here is what worked for us, and I hope it works for you too. I thought I would share it with the general populace since I don't really see too many fixes that work.

Quote:
Ralph B says:
Success!! I have Brinks at home and just installed my Ooma today. Works perfectly together! Took a few attempts running different cables from the back of the Ooma hub to the wall socket but finally got the right combination.
Here is the rough, text-only guide to the back of my Ooma (starting on the right side of the back):
"Power" - plugged into the socket
"Home" - plugged into the wireless router
"Modem" - plugged into my cable modem
"Phone" - plugged into the wall phone socket - this seems to be the key to my success
"Wall" - Empty

"USB" - Empty

I don't know about the rest of you but when Ooma gets plugged into the wall, all the other phone outlets in my home become active - meaning that if I plug Ooma into the wall in my home office, I can plug a regular phone into the phone socket in my bedroom or living room or guest room (etc) and the phone gets an Ooma dial tone.

After running this setup and running a line test on my Brinks system, I got the confirmation tone that the line test WAS SUCCESSFUL and called to cancel my other phone service. Good luck.

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lbmofo
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by lbmofo » Sun May 01, 2011 5:03 pm

Before you distribute your Ooma dialtone, make sure you disconnected your house wiring from the telephone company at the NIB box (most likely outside the house).

Most alarm systems do not work properly if simply feeding dialtone back to a wall jack because most alarm panels would seize phone line before dialing out cutting off improperly fed dialtone.

EBDeWitt
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by EBDeWitt » Tue May 03, 2011 7:32 am

If you connect your Ooma to your house wiring it most likely will not work for your alarm. If the alarm is installed correctly it will disconnect ALL of the phones and jacks in the house from the alarm just before it dials out.
You need to disconnect your house from the old carrier as told to you in past messages then you need to somehow connect the Ooma to the line coming into the house before the alarm.

6194344996
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by 6194344996 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:34 am

Hello,

I just read kartruck's posting on May 1st about being able to get the Brinks/ADT alarm system working with an OOMA phone.

I followed the instructions, but I am having trouble distributing the OOMA dialtone to the wall jacks in my home (I realize that this is just one step, and there is more to getting OOMA to work with an alarm system).

We recently ported over our old phone number to OOMA. I no longer have a dialtone in our wall jack, so I assume that means we no longer have house wiring from our previous phone company( Note: I did not physically disconnect any NIB hardware outside my house). When I plug the OOMA HOME phone connection directly to the wall, I do not get an OOMA dialtone. Has anyone had success with Kartruck's method of distributing the OOMA dialtone to the wall jacks, then eventually getting the alarm system to work with OOMA?

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Linda

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lbmofo
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by lbmofo » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:38 am

Hi Linda, before feeding your Ooma dialtone (from Ooma's phone port) to your wall, you need to disconnect your house wiring from the telephone company at the NIB. Otherwise, you may damage your Ooma.

As for alarm working after you distribute your Ooma dialtone this way, highly unlikely.

Highly unlikely because most alarm panels try to seize the line before dialing out cutting off the very dialtone it needs to dialout. What needs to happen is to feed the Ooma dialtone to a spot upstream to the alarm panel (NIB for example). Walljacks are all downstream from the alarm panel.

murphy
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by murphy » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:41 am

You assume wrong. There is still voltage coming from the phone company even if the dial tone is gone. Plus you would be asking the Ooma box to drive a signal all of the way back to the old phone companies central office. You must disconnect the old phone company where it enters the house.

The Home port is a LAN port, not a phone port. You connect the Ooma's Phone port to your building wall jack (after you do the disconnect in the previous paragraph).
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

6194344996
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by 6194344996 » Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:59 am

Thanks for your reply. I better defer to someone who has taken Electrical Wiring 101. Sincerely, Linda

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highq
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by highq » Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:47 pm

Linda, using your phone number as a login name in the Forum is liable to attract maggots or other creepy-crawlies. Call Customer Service and change it.

glwilki
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by glwilki » Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:39 pm

lbmofo wrote:Hi Linda, before feeding your Ooma dialtone (from Ooma's phone port) to your wall, you need to disconnect your house wiring from the telephone company at the NIB. Otherwise, you may damage your Ooma.

As for alarm working after you distribute your Ooma dialtone this way, highly unlikely.

Highly unlikely because most alarm panels try to seize the line before dialing out cutting off the very dialtone it needs to dialout. What needs to happen is to feed the Ooma dialtone to a spot upstream to the alarm panel (NIB for example). Walljacks are all downstream from the alarm panel.
The above is correct. Most alarm panels feed to a phone jack type RJ31X. Find this jack, remove the cover and run a phone line red and green wires from this jack (terminals 4 and 5 to a new phone jack. Follow the colors correctly when you install this wire to the new jack. Plug the Ooma (phone plug) to this new jack. This will then give you a dial tone feed in front of the alarm dialer and will allow the system to disconnect all other phones and sieze the line going to the Ooma device.

drjjr
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Re: Ooma and ADT Alarm System - possible fix

Post by drjjr » Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:27 am

I am lucky enough to have had a dual wall jack in the room where Ooma and my Uverse are located. But this should work if you install one.

The primary phone jacks in my house (built in 1998) are wired with blue/white to the green and white/blue to the red. The second line in the study was wired with orange/white to the green and white/orange to the red.

What I did to make ADT work was this:
1) Disconnected the jack in the NIB on the side of the house so that the house wiring was isolated from the telco.
2) In the NIB, I moved the orange/white wire which was on a second line terminal to the same terminal as blue/white. Then I moved the white/orange wire to the same terminal as white/blue.
3) Connected Ooma "Phone" to the secondary line jack. At this point I had dial tone on all my phone jacks, including the primary line in the room with the cordless phone base.
4) Turned on the alarm and set it off. Waited for ADT to call, which they did.

My thinking was that the alarm panel would seize line 1 (the blue pairs) but leave the orange pairs alone, which it must have done since Ooma was able to dial out.

House wiring differs, so your mileage may vary. I did not do any *99 dialing programming or anything else, so this may not work 100% of the time, but it seems to have (at least for me) solved the problem of line seizure cutting off Ooma.

Hope this helps.

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